TBILISI -- Electoral experts and data analysts have noticed anomalies in the graphical distribution of votes across Georgia's regions and suspect this may be indirect evidence of election fraud, similar to what is said to have happened during Russia's 2020 constitutional referendum. They call this trend the "Russian Tail."
Against the backdrop of hundreds of violations identified by election observers and questions about vote secrecy, the president and opposition parties do not recognize the election results. The Central Election Commission and the ruling Georgian Dream party deny any falsification.
In this article, we examine what the recently circulated graphs show, what they're based on, and what they cannot show.
"If elections are conducted in a free environment without violations, the graphical representation of parties' received votes shows certain patterns," said Roman Udot, a data analyst and former political prisoner in Russia.
"If conducted in an unfree environment with violations and various manipulations, we can see irregularities, deviations, and anomalies in the data's graphical representation. In Georgia, we see exactly such deviations."
Udot, currently in Tbilisi, is one of several data analysts who independently concluded that Georgia's 2024 parliamentary election results show signs of manipulation.
Russian Precedent
How can simple numbers indicate to observers that citizens encountered some form of manipulation in the electoral process?
Russian data analysts and scientists have been analyzing for decades what voter turnout, distribution of party votes, and patterns or irregularities in these expected patterns might tell us about election fairness using various methods.
One of those scientists was Sergei Shpilkin, a Russian physicist whose approach is frequently used by analysts and journalists in Russia. The Russian monitoring organization Golos indicates has relied on the Kisling-Shpilkin method in observing numerous elections.
Here's how this method works:
Initially, public turnout is analyzed across all polling stations nationwide; in Georgia, turnout was 58.94 percent. According to the theory, in fair elections, turnout indicators typically follow a regular graphical representation that resembles a bell shape. If anomalies appear in the data -- for example, forms different from the bell shape or the bell "grows a tail" -- this indicates unfair elections.
What Does Georgia's Data Show?
Levan Kvirkelia, living in San Francisco, is one of the data analysts who published his findings on the social network X. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili later shared his findings.
According to Kvirkelia, there are clear differences between voter turnout indicators in Georgia's urban and regional districts.
While in cities the data representation mostly follows a bell shape, in the regions it is anomalously deviated.
"In rural settlements, an unusual 'tail' is noticed -- on the graphical representation, on the right side -- which indicates falsification," he writes.
Udot agrees, presenting the same data differently using the Sobyanin-Sukhovolsky method.
Like Shpilkin's method, the Sobyanin-Sukhovolsky method is used to determine election manipulation based on numbers.
It was developed by Russian researchers Sergei Sobyanin and Vyacheslav Sukhovolsky. The method relies on exactly the same data as Shpilkin's method but is graphically represented differently and focuses on votes received by parties. Specifically: The method analyzes vote distribution among political parties at all polling stations and tries to identify deviations that indicate unfair elections.
According to the theory, if a number of stations emerge where one candidate -- the "beneficiary" -- is unusually high, this might indicate falsification. There's a high risk of manipulation where increased overall voter turnout is reflected only in support of the "beneficiary."
How are the "points scattered" in Georgia? Udot says that in Georgia's big cities, a relatively regular picture appears, while the situation is different in the regions.
Here's the graphical representation in Georgian cities: Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Rustavi, Poti, and Senaki:
"Relatively healthy regions look like this -- starting from one point and gradually growing like a ray. Of course, certain deviations exist here, too, but not dramatic ones," Udot explained.
'Unhealthy' Anomalies
"But when we look at all other districts, for me, they're simply strange. Unhealthy. Here the deviation is higher than expected. The scatter of points is wider than expected. It doesn't follow a straight line and, of course, raises suspicions."
He explained: "The anomaly is high votes for Georgian Dream in specific points -- meaning stations...under high turnout conditions. The points were too scattered in specific stations, showing their received votes."
"We'll get the same using Sukhovolsky's method," Udot said. "We call this number distribution a histogram, and the thin part of the histogram [is called] the tail. In my research, I call this the 'Russian Tail,' as we often see it in Russia. Over the years, we watched it grow like a tumor and eat away at the healthy parts of districts."
But how can numerical anomalies be evidence -- even indirect -- of "falsification"? Couldn't these deviations be explained by other factors?
"Yes, everything in this world can be explained differently. And the authorities in Russia explained our findings in thousands of ways.... Look, when a drunk person behaves as they do on the street, you can think of a thousand reasons why they behave that way, but in reality, we all know well that they simply drink too much," Udot told RFE/RL.
"And when we observe these 'scattered points' and see them, we know this isn't normal."